The city released a map Wednesday with dots showing the location of complaints. There are fewer dots on the map than the number of citizen comments, because multiple reports came from similar locations.

Many of the remarks are centered in Downtown, Uptown and the White Rock Lake areas, portions of which are represented by Dallas City Councilman Philip Kingston.

Data shared from the City of Dallas shows 936 public comments have been received on the bike sharing issue.
Photo credit: City of Dallas

The Dallas approach to encourage the use of bicycles for transportation includes no stationary racks which some other cities have required.

"It's providing us a benefit without requiring tax dollars," Kingston said. "Every docked program in the country depends on heavy taxpayer subsidies."

Riders pay by credit card to unlock the bikes, and the companies rely on customers to leave them in safe places when they are finished riding. So far, there have been no restrictions on how many bikes a company can place in Dallas.

Five operators have entered the Dallas market so far and another one is on the way.

Furthermore, the data shows the highest usage in morning and afternoon rush hours.

"Meaning these are rides that are replacing car trips," Kingston said. "So people who don't even want to ride the bikes, who might even be offended by the bikes, are seeing a material benefit in the way traffic flows in the city of Dallas because other people are choosing not to use cars."

Kingston said many of the comments about bike share are not complaints but remarks about the program. He also defended LimeBike in receiving the highest number of comments as a possible victim of its own success.

"LimeBike has done the best job of branding, and that's why it is subject to more complaints," Kingston said.

LimeBike representative Mary Caroline Pruitt said employees were busy moving bikes Wednesday. The company plans a job fair Thursday to add more employees and a community clean-up event at T & P Hill Park near White Rock Lake on Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m.